Impact Evaluation of Infrastructure Interventions
The focus on results in development agencies has led to increased focus on impact evaluation to demonstrate the effectiveness of development programmes. This book illustrates the broad range of methods available for counterfactual analysis of infrastructure programmes such as establishment, rehabilitation and maintenance of roads, water supply and electrical power plants and grids.
Understanding the impact of interventions requires understanding of the context in which the intervention takes place and the channels through which it is expected to occur. For infrastructure interventions it is particularly important to identify the links between the input and the outcomes and impacts because the well-being of people, the ultimate impact, does not change directly as a consequence of the intervention. Therefore impact evaluation of infrastructure programmes typically requires mixing both quantitative and qualitative approaches as illustrated in many of the contributions to this edited volume.
This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Development Effectiveness.
Henrik Hansen is Professor of International Economics and Politics at the Institute of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is also Co-Director of the Centre for Social Science Development Research at University of Copenhagen.
Ole Winckler Andersen is Head of the Evaluation Department at Danida, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark. He has been a member of management committees for several evaluations including, by appointment of the UN Secretary General, the new evaluation of the UN, Delivering as One.
Howard White is the Executive Director of the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie). He is also Co-Chair of the Campbell Collaboration International Development Coordinating Group and Managing Editor of the Journal of Development Studies and the Journal of Development Effectiveness.
Impact Evaluation of Infrastructure Interventions
Edited by
Henrik Hansen, Ole Winckler Andersen and Howard White
First published 2012
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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2012 Taylor & Francis
This book is a reproduction of the Journal of Development Effectiveness, vol. 3, issue 1. The Publisher requests to those authors who may be citing this book to state, also, the bibliographical details of the special issue on which the book was based.
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ISBN13: 978-0-415-50808-7
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Taylor & Francis Books
Publishers Note
The publisher would like to make readers aware that the chapters in this book may be referred to as articles as they are identical to the articles published in the special issue. The publisher accepts responsibility for any inconsistencies that may have arisen in the course of preparing this volume for print.
Contents
Henrik Hansen, Ole Winckler Andersen and Howard White
Eva Broegaard,Ted Freeman and Carsten Schwensen
John Rand
Eduardo Amaral Haddad, Fernando Salgueiro Perobelli, Edson Paulo Domingues and Mauricio Aguiar
Ganesh Rauniyar, Aniceto Orbeta, Jr and Guntur Sugiyarto
Ariel Ben Yishay and Rebecca Tunstall
Howard White
Henrik Hansena, Ole Winckler Andersenb and Howard Whitec
aInstitute of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen, Demark; bMinistry of Foreign Affairs, Copenhagen, Denmark; cInternational Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie), New Delhi, India
The focus on results in development agencies has led to increased focus on impact evaluation to demonstrate the effectiveness of development programmes. A range of methods are available for counterfactual analysis of infrastructure interventions, as illustrated by the variety of papers in this volume. Understanding impact means understanding the context in which an intervention takes place and the channels through which the impact on outcomes is expected to occur. Such analysis typically requires mixing both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The analysis will also anticipate heterogeneity, with conditioning for selection bias being recognised as positive information about for whom and when an intervention works or not.
Introduction
The operation was a success, but the patient died. In plain language, all procedures were followed but the hoped for results were not achieved. Maybe evaluations of development assistance cannot really be compared with hospital operations, but it is the case that procedures seem to be being followed. There has been an increasing focus on, and interest in, evaluations: international evaluation quality standards have been developed, and the OECD-DACs Evaluation Resource Centre (DEReC) includes more than 2000 evaluations of development assistance, and this is an incomplete list.
The large number of evaluations clearly shows that the evaluation patient has not died. But, although there is not a death to report, there is a serious dearth. This dearth is reflected in the fact that, in spite of all these evaluations, there is still a general perception that too little is known about the effects of development assistance and that a better understanding of these effects has to be established. The Evaluation Gap report from 2006 (Centre for Global Development 2006) is one of a number of analyses that has stated this view. Surveys conducted in donor countries have also shown that, while the moral obligation to give aid scores relatively high, the picture is more mixed when it comes to the general publics assessment of the effectiveness of development assistance.
Continued uncertainty about the effects of development assistance make it difficult to create or maintain broad public support for development assistance, especially at a time of widespread cuts in many countries as at the time of writing. Donors have reacted by strengthening their focus on results, as has been demonstrated at several international meetings. The results agenda surfaced in public administration during the 1990s, and has been given momentum in the development field by the widespread adoption of the Millennium Development Goals, which provide a set of outcome-level targets for the development community. More recently the high level meeting in Paris in 2005 endorsed the Paris Declaration, and the meeting in Accra in 2008 endorsed the Accra Agenda for Action. The latter includes as one of three major challenges to accelerate progress on aid effectiveness:
